North Royalton farmer seeks online votes to win $1,000

Janice Stack of North Royalton is one of eight finalists seeking online votes to win $1,000 in the “Because I Care” video contest sponsored by the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation’s (OFBF) Center for Food and Animal Issues.

Her video, “Backyard Poultry,” showcased how she provides care and well-being for the animals on her backyard poultry farm.

Forty-three videos containing positive and informative messages about livestock farming were submitted by Ohio farmers, county Farm Bureaus, youth and other agricultural organizations between July 1 and Sept. 24. Each entry was required to be 90 to 120 seconds long and made publicly available on YouTube.com.

“We are very pleased with the overall quality of videos in the contest, and the messages they share,” said David White, OFBF senior director of issues management. “The eight chosen finalists did the best job overall of communicating their messages in a creative, original manner. It’s very clear they take tremendous care of their animals.”“We need to have more farmers regularly sharing their stories online,” White said. “There are a lot of anti-animal agriculture videos on the Web, and they needed no prizes or incentives to be there.”

Each finalist will receive a $500 pre-paid gift card. The finalist receiving the most online votes at http://bit.ly/BecauseICare by Oct. 28 will be declared the People’s Choice Grand Prize Winner, and receive a $1,000 pre-paid gift card. Visitors to the site may vote once per day for any of the videos. To see an archive of all videos submitted in the contest, visit http://bit.ly/BecauseICareArchive.

Ohio Farm Bureau is the state’s largest farming organization, with more than 214,000 members from farmers to foodies and more. It’s not a requirement that one be a farmer to join. To learn more, visit www.GrowWithFB.org.